Review: Normal People

Normal People by Sally Rooney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I am surprised how much I liked this book. It arrived in the mail for my son - a school reading. I read the back cover, dismissed it as a book for "the young", but then started reading the first page while having my lunch. Hmm. I simply couldn't put it down.

It is a highly-focused love story, with a distinctly present day angst. It doesn't read as though it had ever been written carefully on a page, but rather it just reads as though you are in someone else's head the whole time, hearing them talk. Such a distinct style and it really works, too. The author places you into the heads of her characters, where, like it or not, you will experience being them.

Since I prefer authors like Wilkie Collins, Dickens and George Eliot, usually I will take a strong cup of tea and maybe a slice of lemon cake with my reading. But, Normal People demands to be taken with avocado toast and kombucha. Really.

Here's the thing - the perfectly articulated thoughts of Connell and Marianne are so beautifully sculpted and so provoking that you just want to hear more and more. You might relate; you might not. Either way, their thoughts and their conversations will leave you slightly stricken, because you will understand them and (I think) this will surprise you.

This is a book you will get lost in!



View all my reviews